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Wednesday

Henri Manguin (1874-1949) French Fauvist Artist

Jeanne with Umbrella Seated in the Garden of Coulombs, 1900

Henri Manguin started his career by enrolling in Gustave Moreau's studio at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1894, where Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, Georges Rouault, Jean Puy and Georges Rouault were his fellow students. For the first time he exhibited in 1902 at the Salon des Indépendants. Later he became an associate of the Salon d’Automne and he remained loyal to until the end of his career.

Jeanne Lying on a Couch

He was known as one of the Fauvists as in 1905 his canvas was hung in the room, famously derided as the Cage aux Fauves. Around that time he stayed in Provence with Paul Signac and since then he had been captivated by the beauty of the place. In 1920 he bought a property where later he met Henri Edmond Cross, French Pointillist painter. Manguin travelled extensively in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and all over France in search of landscapes to paint, following this half-nomadic lifestyle and never staying long in any one place until the WWII.

Bride with Two Women and a Parrot

Manguin’s subjects are women, landscapes, mostly Mediterranean, and represented the height of his career as a Fauve artist, and still lifes with flowers. The artist considered himself to be the painter of a happy life, depicting the most harmonious aspects of the world. Tristan Klingsor mentioned Manguin in his book La Peinture (1921): 'his search for bright, vibrant colours, his outbursts of orange, his sumptuous reds…even the shadows contribute to the levity and gaiety, often taking on tones of green'.